The present invention generally relates to management of reward redemptions in a loyalty program and, more specifically, to a method and system for facilitating reinstatement of redeemed rewards and accruals in the event that a qualifying transaction is reversed.
Loyalty programs are programs that provide participants with incentives to shop at certain retailers sponsoring the program. An incentive is something of value that may be redeemed or collected by a participant. Retailers may thus provide automatic rewards for redemption at the point of sale to customers making a purchase that qualifies for redemption. Alternatively, retailers sponsoring a loyalty program may allow a customer to accumulate or collect incentives, points or credits which entitle the customer to receive redeemable rewards.
Conventional approaches for handling reward accruals and redemptions have a number of problems. One problem is, for example, after a customer redeems a reward, the reward cannot be reinstated to the customer for future redemption if the customer subsequently reverses a qualifying transaction. In other words, once redeemed, the reward is irreversibly used. To qualify for the same reward, the customer will then have to start all over again by making additional qualifying purchases. Consequently, customer's satisfaction may be greatly reduced due to the inability to reinstate and redeem previously-earned rewards and the need to requalify for the same reward.
Another problem is fraudulent reward accruals. Under conventional approaches, when a customer reverses a qualifying transaction, any reward earned or accrued, in whole or in part, is not similarly reversed. As a result, a customer is able to accumulate and redeem rewards that s/he is not entitled to. This encourages fraudulent behavior by customers who make qualifying purchases only to reverse them later on for the sole purpose of accruing rewards.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a method and system that facilitates the reversal of reward redemptions and accruals in order to enhance customer satisfaction and minimize fraudulent abuse of a loyalty program when qualifying transactions are reversed.